Electronic Delivery of ILLs

About the service

Inter-Library loan articles and book chapters can now be delivered electronically using the British Library’s Secure Electronic Delivery scheme. Just select the delivery method 'Secure Electronic Delivery' when submitting your request - the ILL will then be sent to you as an encrypted PDF.

Additional Support users

If you are an Additional Support user then you may be eligible to receive unencrypted accessible PDFs of your inter-library loans. To request accessible versions of documents, please contact interlibrary@yorksj.ac.uk or ring 01904 87 6149, or enquire via the Service Desk. There is no need to follow the steps below to receive accessible PDFs, as these are just for users of the standard service.

Before you can receive ILLs by Secure Electronic Delivery, you need to:

1) Register for a British Library Account.

Go to http://ondemand.bl.uk/onDemand/home and select the option to ‘Register’ in the top right hand corner. You will need your account username and password to log in and access your documents.

There is a delay of a few hours between registration and the account become live, so we recommend users register for an account as soon as they place their first ILL request. You only need to register once, as you can continue to use your login for all future ILL requests.

You may receive an automated email from the British Library asking you if you want to link your account to your institution's account. You don't need to do this to receive electronic ILLs, so please just ignore this message.

2) Ensure that Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader (version 9 or higher) is installed on the device on which you want to download the document.

Once you’ve opened your ILL, you can save multiple copies of the document to different devices and can print one copy of the document. The PDF is encrypted so it’s not currently possible to add notes or comments.

Please note that only inter-library loan items which are available at the British Library can be sent via this delivery method. Electronic delivery of whole books is also not possible due to copyright restrictions (though one chapter of a book can be delivered electronically). If we’re unable to send your document to you electronically, we will contact you to let you know and to find out how you’d prefer to receive your paper copy.

Instructions for opening electronic ILLs on supported devices

Make sure Adobe Reader is installed on the computer and that your British Library account has been set up in advance of downloading the document.

Click on the link you have been sent via email to download your document. It will open in your default web browser.

If using Google Chrome as your default web browser: please note that Google Chrome has a built-in PDF reader and the documents will not open correctly in this. You will need to disable this PDF reader; you can do this by typing chrome://plugins in the address bar, then scrolling down to ‘Chrome PDF viewer’ and clicking on disable.

Open the document in Adobe PDF Reader. Internet Explorer and Firefox should offer you the option to open the file with Adobe Acrobat. To open the document from Google Chrome, choose the option ‘Show in Folder’ and then open with Adobe from there.

On opening the file, you will see screen prompting you to enter your British Library username and password.

There is an option to tick a box marked ‘remember me on this computer’ which means that you won’t have to re-enter your username and password every time you open the document. You should only select this option if you are using your own PC and not a public PC.

You will then be offered the option to ‘view secure documents offline’. Again, you should only agree if you are on your personal computer. You will then have access to the document offline for 3 days and will be able to access without an internet connection until that time period has elapsed.

You will be taken through to the document, where you have the option to save multiple copies of the document and to print the document once. You will have access to the document for 3 years.

Make sure Adobe Reader is installed on the computer and that your British Library account has been set up in advance of downloading the document.

Please note that the special Adobe Reader app for Surface, Adobe Reader Touch, is not compatible with the ILL documents. You should instead install the latest version of the program, Adobe Reader DC, which is available from the Adobe website (https://acrobat.adobe.com/uk/en/products/pdf-reader.html) but not from the Windows app store.

Click on the link you have been sent via email to download your document. It will open in your default web browser.

If using Google Chrome as your default web browser: please note that Google Chrome has a built-in PDF reader and the documents will not open correctly in this. You will need to disable this PDF reader; you can do this by typing chrome://plugins in the address bar, then scrolling down to ‘Chrome PDF viewer’ and clicking on disable.

Open the document in Adobe PDF Reader. Internet Explorer and Firefox should offer you the option to open the file with Adobe. To open the document from Google Chrome, choose the option ‘Show in Folder’ and then open with Adobe from there.

On opening the file, you will see a screen prompting you to enter your British Library username and password.

There is an option to tick a box marked ‘remember me on this computer’ which means that you won’t have to re-enter your username and password every time you open the document. You should only select this option if using your own personal device.

You will then be offered the option to ‘view secure documents offline’. Again, you should only agree if you are on your personal device. You will then have access to the document offline for 3 days and will be able to access without an internet connection until that time period has elapsed.

You will be taken through to the document, where you have the option to save multiple copies of the document and to print the document once. You will have access to the document for 3 years.

Make sure Adobe Reader is installed on the computer and that your British Library account has been set up in advance of downloading the document.

Click on the link you have been sent via email to download your document. It will open in the default Web browser, Safari.

Safari may be set to automatically open PDFs upon download, but will open using the default reader instead of Adobe. You will need to change this by going to Safari (top left) and Preferences, then unticking the option to 'Open 'Safe' files after downloading'

Go into Finder and locate the downloaded file, which will be in your Downloads folder. Right-click and then select 'Open with' and then 'Adobe Reader'.

You will be asked to enter your username and password.

You can choose to 'Remember me on this computer' which you will mean that the computer will remember your username and password and you won’t have to re-enter each time you re-open the document. Only select this option if you are using a personal computer and not a public one.

You will then be given the option to 'View secure documents offline'. Again, you should only agree if you are on your personal computer. You will then have access to the document offline for 3 days and will be able to access without an internet connection until that time period has elapsed.

You will be taken through to the document, where you have the option to save multiple copies of the document and to print the document once. You will have access to the document for 3 years.

Make sure Adobe Reader is installed on the device and that your British Library account has been set up in advance of downloading the document.

Click on the link you have been sent via email to download your document. It will open in the default web browser, Safari. Enter your username if required and then press the button marked ‘Click here to download your document’.

Safari will be set to automatically open PDFs on download, but will do so using its own default PDF reader rather than Adobe Acrobat. As the document will only work in Adobe Acrobat, it will appear to have opened a blank document. To reopen the file in Adobe Acrobat, press on the document and a bar will appear at the top of the screen, offering the option to ‘Open in iBooks’ or ‘Open in…’. Select ‘Open in…’ and a window should pop up giving you the option to ‘Open in Adobe Acrobat’.

The document should open in Adobe Acrobat and you will be prompted to enter your British Library username and password.

You will be taken through to the document, where you have the option to save multiple copies of the document and to print the document once. You will have access to the document for 3 years.

Please note: If you leave the document running in the background you should be able to return to it without needing to re-enter your username and password. However, if you close the document and then re-open it, or switch off the device, you will need to re-enter your login details and will need an internet connection for authentication purposes.

Make sure Adobe Reader is installed on the device and that your British Library account has been set up in advance of downloading the document.

Click on the link you have been sent via email to download your document. It will open in the default web browser (Google Chrome).

Please note that Google Chrome has a built-in PDF reader and the documents will not open correctly in this. You will need to disable this PDF reader; you can do this by typing chrome://plugins in the address bar, then scrolling down to ‘Chrome PDF viewer’ and clicking on disable.

In the BL webpage, enter username if required and press the button ‘Click to download your document’

You will see a notification in the top-left hand corner of your screen when the document has successfully downloaded. Press on the notification and a ‘Complete action using’ box should appear, giving you a choice of programs to open the document with. Select ‘Adobe Acrobat’. You can tell the tablet to always open such documents with Adobe PDF to make the process quicker in future if you wish.

You should see a box appear on screen asking you to log in with your British Library username and password.

You will be taken through to the document, where you have the option to save multiple copies of the document and to print the document once. You will have access to the document for 3 years.

Please note: If you leave the document running in the background you should be able to return to it without needing to re-enter your username and password. However, if you close the document and then re-open it, or switch off the device, you will need to re-enter your login details and will need an internet connection for authentication purposes.

Once downloaded, the document will appear on the home screen with scrolling apps. You can click on it and then when the ‘Complete Action Using’ box pops up, select Adobe Reader.

You will be prompted to enter your British Library username and password to access the document:

You will be taken through to the document, where you have the option to save multiple copies of the document and to print the document once. You will have access to the document for 3 years.

Please note: If you leave the document running in the background you should be able to return to it without needing to re-enter your username and password. However, if you close the document and then re-open it, or switch off the device, you will need to re-enter your login details and will need an internet connection for authentication purposes.